iNSaNiTY and aNGuiSH
by Annabeth Zatsune
Summary: Seconds before being assassinated, Edward and Alphonse are whisked into the crazy world of iNSaNiTY. Protected by the kooky Kill Krew, they try to find a way home in one piece. But when the treacherous Quick-draw shows up, will Annabeth and her Krew live to keep them the same? Reviewers get parts and free cookies at the Layr! Rated T for slight swearing and gore.
1. Chapter 1

There was a high, shrill whistle. Everyone in Mustang's office covered their ears.

Through the pain, Edward made out someone standing in the office-door, and something flooding into the room. But when he went to perform Alchemy, he found that the things pouring in were snakes, lizards, and other reptiles. They swarmed up him and everyone else in the room, holding them in place, not letting them move.

"Well, this job was way easier than I expected!" laughed the person in the office door. They looked vaguely reptilian as well, and Ed guessed that she was the one making the reptiles behave strangely.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Mustang demanded.

"Call me Lissard. And all I want is my paycheck... But to get that, I have to kill the Elrics." she grinned, a forked tongue flicking over sharp teeth.

He saw a large snake opening up it's jaws down on his leg. It's fangs were literally dripping venom...!

Lissard screamed, and he saw an arm flop to the floor. "Lucky you, reptile, that limb will grow back." someone sneered. He couldn't see them, they were hiding in the shadows. "But, unlucky you, my cat hates snakes."

He jerked his head back down and saw that the snake was laying limp on the floor, a series of scratches along it's body.

Suddenly all the wind was knocked out of him as he and Al were bundled-

- Through the window!

"Oof!"

They had been caught by...

... An angel?

She had tanned skin, dark eyes and hair, and huge white wings. "Don't squirm!" she gasped, flying them away from the building. Behind them, he saw two other... people?... jump out the window and charge after them. The girl touched down and dumped them on the ground. "Oof! Even weight-lifting five-hundred doesn't prepare one for that!" she grunted, sort of limping over to a large circle in the ground. A young woman with long silver hair and white pants was crouched there, using chalk to finish the circle. "Are you almost done? We're on a tight schedule here!"

As the other two caught up, the girl looked up, and he almost fell down in his shock. She was a freakin' unicorn!

"Okay, I want an explanation here!" he said, finally finding his voice.

"Later. Unless you want Lissard to catch up with hopes of avenging her arm!" groaned one of the other two.

"You keep getting weirder and weirder!" Al whimpered as they looked back at the eight-foot-tall samurai with a cat on her shoulder. The samurai was digging around in her pockets, searching for something.

"You should see some of the other Insane Citizens." the cat mewed, rolling it's eyes.

"Holy crap-!"

"Both of you shut up and do as I say or you get my machete in your skull." the samurai snapped, finding what she was searching for. "Hey, I've got twenty more acorns if you hurry up!" she said to the unicorn-girl.

"Acorns...?"

"What did she say? You see the size of that thing on her hip, don't you?" the angel asked.

They both looked, and he gulped at the sight of the ginormous machete. It still had blood on it from chopping off Lissard's arm.

"Aw, crap, hurry! Liss is comin'!" the cat mewed anxiously.

"Done!" chirped the unicorn-girl. "Here you go!"

She touched her horn to the chalk circle, and the samurai shoved them both into it.

"Thank you, and here're your acorns!" the samurai howled as she plunged in after them.

_L8er..._

He groaned, sitting up. "Rise and shine, sleeping beauty, we gotta go now." came the sharp order.

He scrabbled backwards away from the samurai. Now he could see her in better detail.

"Why don't we switch to my point of view?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"That's how things work here. In iNSaNiTY, the world can only be told from one point of view. I wouldn't really be here, but Annabeth insisted I join her 'Dark Side.'" the angel explained from behind him. "If you give her control, you'll understand better when she gives you an explanation."

"Maybe you should give it to her, Brother... They tried to explain it to me earlier, and I don't get it." Al said from where he was petting the cat.

"Uhh... Okay, how do I...?"

I jumped up. "Wow, sure feels good to be in charge of the view-point again!" I groaned, stretching. I'm around eight feet tall, have long black hair that comes to my knees, one red eye and one blue, a mask to cover my face, a huge machete that hangs at my hip like a trusty side-kick, a nasty attitude, a 100 on the inkblot test-

"95."

"Huh?" I said, looking at sydneyeakins, the cat. She's my bestest best friend and a loyal familiar.

"Don't lie to us, you got a 95, not 100." she said, glowering at me.

I glowered back. "Kill-joy."

Okay, back to descriptions. sydneyeakins is about two feet tall, brown with black and gray stripes, and a pretty blue collar. Her eyes are a piercing green that glow in the dark.

anna's little friend is our own Avian American, for you Maximum Ride fans. She's part Eskimo so that accounts for her coloration, which goes amazingly awesome with her wings!

"This is insane! How are we thinking things like you?!" Edward yelled, jumping up and pointing at me.

"Simple. At the beginning of the story, it was being told from your point of view. But then you gave up mastery over view-point, so now I'm in charge!" I grinned.

"Well, now I want it back!" he yelled, waving his arms around.

"It can only be given willingly, sorry! Now, an explanation to what's happening..." I said thoughtfully, looking up.

There was silence. Ed looked like he was going to join the largely insane portion of this world, friend and sydneyeakins were waiting calmly, and Al looked confused.

"I honestly don't know either, just that we're getting paid to keep you alive!" I grinned.

friend grabbed Ed's coat to keep him from trying to attack me. "But... We're here in iNSaNiTY, so I can tell you about that." I said as I put my story-telling face on.

"Take that mask off, it's cheesy." friend said.

I groaned, removing it. "iNSaNiTY started as the craziness of some girl. But it grew and grew until her body expelled it and it became it's own world. People here are either insane or really weird, like us. Anything can happen in this world, because it's the world of nut-cases, insanity, psychopathy, and insanity."

"You said insanity twice!" Al whined.

"Oh, be quiet. Insanity is the name of the place!" sydneyeakins yawned. I smiled appreciatively at her.

"So, what sector of iNSaNiTY is this anyways? Are we close to the Layr?" anna's little friend asked.

"Layr? What?" Al asked.

"We're members of the Kill Krew. We're elite ninjas, samurais, miracle-workers and what-not for hire. I'm da leadah!" I grinned cheekily. "We hang out at an abandoned bar that was called the Dragon's Layr. Now it's our lair!" I looked around, then up at the sky. "Ah... Yeah, we're close, see? The hatchlings are just starting to test their wings!"

"Hatchling whats?" Ed asked nervously, now fully aware that they could be things that wanted to eat his brains.

"Nothing too scary, even for a chibi like you. Just the little winged-horsie thingies. They like to exercise their magic, but their parents strongly frown on it when it's so weak. Even you could easily dispatch a couple dozen." sydneyeakins purred, jumping to my shoulders. Ed finally caught on that chibi meant little, but both friend and Al were holding him back as we started to walk.

"Is that the Layr?" Al asked suddenly.

We were facing an abandoned building. Signs outside read that it was condemned and to keep clear. "Nah; That's just the entrance " I said, lifting open a trap-door just inside the large hole that had once been a door.

We all slipped inside, and Ed and Al looked super confused. Understandable. I was confused when I first came to iNSaNiTY.

We were in a totally different area, it seemed. The trap-door had vanished behind us, leaving a starry black sky. A huge, cozy-looking bar with lots of neon lights, noise, and different scents greeted us. A small white wisp vanished inside.

"Crying Spectre saw us." I remarked casually.

"Huh?"

"Crying Spectre is a ghost-cat. It's the familiar of See-no Speak-no. It's also a great spy." sydneyeakins informed the two brothers as we advanced.

"Welcome back!" boomed the Krew, bursting out of the bar and swarming around us.

"Wow, you guys aren't that weird now that we can see the whole pack..." Edward said softly. He was face-to-face with See-no Speak-no, who was listening intently.

See-no Speak-no isn't the strangest of the Krew by far. Super-long arms, red duct-tape over where his mouth and eyes would be, a mess of brown hair with white linen bandages wrapped around his skull. Crying Spectre communicates with him by passing through his head, showing him everything. Ed practically fainted as the white cat ran up thin air and half-way through See-no's head. I grinned at that, then turned back to Demon Duke Darius. If he was to be unbound from his human form, he'd be pretty darn powerful, so you have to give him respect. And anywho, he's a duke of demons- That alone deserves some respect!

"So you successfully retrieved them. Now what? Everyone after them will come after us."

Even I felt a shiver run down my spine at those three voices.

"Kierra... LL... Far... Nice to see you three too..." I said, smiling weakly. They're like the female versions of Light, L, and Near from Death Note. They're best friends, yet they're out to kill each other. Kierra of the Note is the character that fits Light's figure. LL is of Hispanic descent, but she's almost exactly like the anime character. Far is young, but she's mature beyond her years, smart, sneaky, and creative. Once the three concoct up a plan, the rest of the world is puppets on strings, falling victim to their master plan.

"Please don't think like that..." Ed begged, his eyes pleading me.

"Sorry, but Annabeth is very impulsive with what she thinks. You'll never get her to not think like that." Kierra said, flipping open her Death Note and scribbling a name in real quick. Far and LL both glared at her.

"What's a Death Note?" asked Al.

"Kierra, care to explain it? LL? Far?" I said, my head cocked.

"Basically if I write the name of someone who's face I know in it, you die." she said, writing another name in.

"Would you cut that out?" Far snapped.

"Never."

I sighed, rolling my eyes. You'd never get them to stop arguing... "I was figuring we'd keep on the move so that if Lissard and friends came back after us we could go from place to place easily." I said loudly, breaking up several fights before they started.

"Sweet. Walk, ride, 'portin'?" asked Modern Vampyr. He's a teenager who can become close to Dracula in an instant. He's two weeks blood-starved, so he's probably waiting for us to go to a big city.

"Actually... I was thinking we'd spread out across iNSaNiTY... That way, me, sydneyeakins, and anna's little friend can go where we please, and same for you guys. But if I need you, I'll just whistle." I shrugged.

The Krew vanished like roaches under a light-bulb. "Care to explain?" Ed asked.

"Nope. But when I whistle, the Krew can always hear it. Oh, shit, I was gonna ask Benten to give your brother an iNSaNiTY body!" I snapped.

"Huh?"

"Benten Goddess of Snow and Ice is a powerful demigoddess, and her powers are boosted since she's always mad. Her specialty is snow and ice. But she can make iNSaNiTY bodies, which only last as long as you're here. But they're way epic-er than real bodies." sydneyeakins explained. Sometimes I wonder what I'd do without her.

"We can ask her when we run into her. Let's go, please?" friend asked.

"Good idea!" I smiled, starting to walk in a random direction.

**If you review on this story, I'll incorporate you into it! And you also get free cookies if you ever stop by the Layr!**


	2. Chapter 2

"Do you even know where we're going?" Edward groaned.

"Nope, not really!" I said cheerfully. "We could be going north-south for all I know! I'm just wandering!"

"Don't try to argue, just stick close. We don't know where we're going, who'll attack you, or if we have all our necessary junk to fight with." friend grumbled.

"Hey, Annabeth's got her satchel! That thing hold everything, so cool it!" sydneyeakins meowed. "... Annabeth, I'm hungry."

"Weaklings!" I cackled as everyone's stomachs growled. Then I sweat-dropped as my own growled. "Hold on... I got cookies somewhere in here..." I said, digging around in my satchel. "Got 'em!" I crowed, pulling out a cookie-jar.

"That thing's huge! How'd you even fit it in that tiny hip-bag?!" Ed cried, pointing from the jar to my satchel.

"If you don't want any, I'll gladly eat your share... Or I'll summon LL." I warned.

"No, I want them!" he said quickly, waving his arms around frantically.

"Okay..." I sat down pulling out a small table-cloth from my satchel and setting it on the ground. "We get thirteen each. That way there's twenty-six left for when we run into Benten and get Al a temporary body!" I smiled.

"Why does he get twice what we do?"

"He'll be eating for the first time in... I don't remember how long. Been a while since I watched either of your animes or read the manga. Just eat the cookies." I said, shoving one of them in my mouth. "Mmmm... Mommy, I love you..."

"Who's Mommy? Some freakish other-worldly cook?" Ed asked, devouring his share.

I reached to throttle him as everyone else held me back. "How dare you insult my mother!" I yelled, reaching out for his neck. "How dare you! How dare you!"

"Woah, look, I'm sorry! I didn't know!" he yelped, scrambling back away from me.

There was a chitter, and we all whipped around, battle-ready. "Oh, it's fine..." sydneyeakins sighed in relief. "Your father just sent a coworker to check on us apparently."

I squealed, scooping up the fluffy little squirrel. "A squirrel is her dad's coworker?" Al asked in disbelief.

"Yep! Aww, you so cute!" I cooed, tickling it's tummy. It chittered again, and I dug out a left-over acorn. "Here you go!"

In between nibbles on the acorn, the squirrel gave me it's report.

"What? No way, I thought we ditched her! Wait, who's coming? And Lissard? No way! Awww... Thank you, cutsie!" I put the squirrel down and it scampered off.

"You just talked to a squirrel?" Ed snorted.

"Well, yeah! They're the secret masters of the universe! Don't diss the squirrels!" I said sassily. "But back to business. Squirrel just told me that Lissard's on her way with an army of komodo dragons, she ain't happy, and some friend of you and Al's is on her way." I reported, putting my cookie-jar and table-cloth back in my satchel. "Hurry up and finish eating, because I don't want to be caught lying down on the job!"

anna's little friend scooped her cookies up and stuffed them in her pockets, sydneyeakins and Ed hurriedly devoured the rest of theirs, and I licked the last of my crumbs off my fingers as we got up and started moving.

We'd just reached the edge of a forest when Lissard finally reared her ugly head. We knew of her presence by the fact that there were three flying snakes trying to dive-bomb us. "sydney, you protect the brothers! friend, you take care of the fliers! I'll try to find that camouflaged monster and cut off something that won't grow back!" I roared, storming into the trees.

Bad idea.

"Oof!"

"You couldn't have landed half a foot to the left?" Ed groaned.

"Nope. Too much effort to change direction in midair." I grunted, getting up. "I think she also employed some ninjas or something... I may have to use my ninja-arts..."

"Well if you do, use 'em!" sydneyeakins snapped.

I rolled my eyes and charged back into the trees. And got thrown back out again. We repeated this little charade at least six times before I got sick of it. "Rawr! Now I'm mad!" I roared. " Shadow-clone jutsu!"

Now there were at least fifteen of me. That was the number I'd aimed for. And these were solid ones. I figured if I clobbered everything within reach, eventually I'd draw blood.

It worked...

...Once...

I beat the living daylights out of the one thing I'd nabbed, but all my clones got beat.

"RAWR!" I roared, hacking and slicing away at the thing in front of me.

"Ouch..." Lissard groaned when I paused to take a breath. Then she grinned.

"Aw, shiiii~..." I swore, seeing that she was wearing protective armor that only beat up my machete instead of her. The one time I'd drawn actual blood was when I cut her face. She was bruised and banged up, but there was very little blood. "YOU CHEATER! THAT AIN'T FAIR! TAKE THAT OFF, TAKE IT OFF TAKE IT OFF TAKE IT OFF!" I yelled, beating her on the head with the handle of my machete.

We raged back and forth in a childish tantrum for a minute or two. Then someone else popped up and knocked Lissard out.

"Eh? Who're you?" I asked, looking from the prone body of the lizard-charmer to the young woman in front of me.

"I'm Amber Roselia Jordan!" she said proudly. She held out a pink business-card, and I took it.

"Ohh, you're a friend of ZoeythePinkNinja! I see! Well, thank her for the help when you get back." I smiled, tucking the card into my satchel.

"Okay! How're your charges going?"

"I dunno... I left them alone to try and conk her on the head..."

I turned around and exited the forest. When Amber saw Ed and Al, she squealed and glomped them. It took me a minute to recall that Amber had grown up with Winry and the Elrics, but left to 'find' herself.

"Leggo leggo leggo!" Ed gasped, waving his arms frantically. It struck me how funny it was that he waved his arms a lot in this story. He shot me a dirty look before going back to ask Amber how she got her auto-mail arm.

I let them talk for a little before making a point of checking my invisible watch for the time. "This is a real touching reunion, and I hate to break it up..." I said loudly.

"Right! Seeya around! Bye, guys!" Amber smiled, waving as she vanished into the trees.

"Come over for cookies at the Layr sometime!" I hollered after her. I got not reply.

"So... Can we get going?" Ed asked.

"Sure, I guess. Let's go... THIS way!" I said, a big smile on my masked face as I spun on my heel and marched straight into the trees.

"YOU MEAN THE NINJA-INFESTED WOODS?!" Ed and Al both screamed.

"Yep! Should be fun! Maybe we can catch one! sydneyeakins, if I catch a ninja, can I keep it?" I asked.

"No. You already have me." the fluff-ball grumbled, licking the cobra-blood off her claws.

"Aww... Oh well, c'mon!" I said, instantly recovering from my depression and dragging Ed and Al into the woods. They were telling me not to and trying to go back to the light.

Hearing the strumming of an electric guitar, I changed my mind.

"Why? What's wrong with the guitar?" asked Ed, curious now.

"You don't want to meet the player... Or the ax..." friend said nervously, looking around as she and I retreated, dragging Ed and Al after us.

"Ax? Huh?"

I pictured what I was talking about as much as I possibly could... Having never_ met _the Insane Player, I only knew her description from verbal tellings and blurry pictures.

"I-Insane Player?" Al squeaked.

"The girl that made iNSaNiTY... She now wanders the place eternally, and she's supposedly none too kind... Those who meet her come back completely sane, which ain't good in this place, or vanish. She drags around this giant guitar that has an ax blade in it... Kinda funny, because the slang term for guitar is 'ax,' but she can still play it. She's always caught up in the cord extending from it... But like I said, you don't wanna meet her!"

Encouraged by my explanation, to brothers started to walk on their own, and soon we burst out of the forest.

"Uhh... Where'd the ground go?" sydneyeakins asked after a second.

Looking down, I saw she was right. We were all standing on thin air.

"Aw, shit." I swore.

A moment later, all of us were falling but anna's little friend.

And when I searched for her swooping figure racing against gravity to save us, I didn't see her. Looking down, I saw her...

... Knocked out and blood fluttering through the air like a ribbon from her head.

Someone had known we were coming and had planned this.

My guess? The same people who wanted all of us dead.

And looking down at the sharp rocks below us, the first thing that popped into my head was "Damn, what a good job they've done of getting us in a fix."

**DUN-DUN-DUN! How will this play out? How will we escape this fix? Or will we die on the rocks below? *Strikes a Sailor Moon pose* Stay tuned, and you'll find out!**

**sydneyeakins: Cut the crap, Annabeth, and write us out of this one!**

**Hell no! Not yet anyway!**

**Edward: You've got ten seconds...**

**What're you gonna do about it, shrimp? I'm eight feet tall. Whatever, don't forget to review, peoples!**

**If you review on this story, I'll incorporate you into it! And you also get free cookies if you ever stop by the Layr!**

**_Thanks to: _ZoeythePinkNinja _for reviewing!_  
**

**_Credit to ZoeythePinkNinja for _Amber Roselia Jordan**


	3. Chapter 3

I glared back up at the sky, crossing my arms. "Wow, I'm pissed off now..."

"Just get us outta here!" sydneyeakins wailed over the screaming wind and the wailing Elrics.

"Whatever..." I sighed. I cleared my throat and sang out, "_I need a miracle!_"

_POOF!_

I coughed, waving away the smoke. "What, italicizing the word wasn't enough, Angelfire? Had to put it in all caps?" I sniffed. Bad idea... I started coughing again.

"Sorry for saving your asses." our savior said snootily.

"What the hell is this?" Ed asked.

The white-and-blue miracle-worker before us glared up at him. He was a wolf-thing. Large fluffy tail, big clunky paws, tuft of hair in his eyes, lip-piercing, halo, crystal wings... That's Delicate Angelfire Celestial for you.

"That's an odd name..." Al said.

"Well, here, Alphonse Elric would seem very odd." I sassed back. "Thanks for the miracle, Angelfire!" I smiled.

"Seven bucks, please." he said, blushing a little.

"You're so much cuter with pink on your cheeks." sydneyeakins commented as I dug around in my pocket. The blush across the wolf's muzzle deepened and spread.

"Thanks..."

"Here you go, seven bucks!" I smiled, and he took the singles in his mouth before vanishing in a poof of glittery white dust. "I love that dog..."

"What's this?" Al asked, picking up a slip of paper that was where Delicate Angelfire Celestial had been before. "This is very fancy writing... I can't read it..." he said uncertainly.

"Aw, shucks, did he leave sydneyeakins a verse or two?" I teased, grinning as I snatched the paper. "Awup, nope... It's a free certificate for an iNSaNiTY body!"

"Wait... what? You said-!" Ed squeaked.

"We're originally thieves, assassins and murders for hire, what do you expect? Yes, Benten uses stolen materials to whip up the ones she makes! But they're kick-ass better than the store-bought ones... So, Al, do you want it, or are we saving it for some poor soul elsewhere in this mixed-up world?"

"If what you say about Benten's being better is true..."

"AL! WE CAN'T DO THAT!" Edward yelled, beating on Al's chest-plate.

"But Brother! Think about it! I'll be even more useful then than if I use the one for the certificate!" Al objected. "I say we wait until we run into Benten!"

"Okay." I nodded, slipping the paper into my satchel. "Now then, before we do anything else..." I added, staring at the glitter before us.

"Hey, you got the last batch!" anna's little friend yelled.

"No, that was you, and she got the one before that!" sydneyeakins intervened, diving into the small heap.

"HEEEEEYYY-UH!" me and friend yelled.

"Umm... What're you fighting over?" Ed asked.

"The glitter from Delicate Angelfire Celestial. It's kinda like sugar... Only it also supplies energy a thousand-fold, and chakra, and magic powers, and-" I said, starting to ramble. "What am I doing?! C'mere, you evil little feline!" I howled, diving after my familiar, who was sweeping the glitter into her secret pocket.

So me and friend proceeded to chase sydney around in circles until Ed got tired of sitting around and whacked us in the faces with a tree-branch. And suddenly-

"OI!" Annabeth yelled. "HOW THE CRAP DID YOU DO THAT?!"

"Wait, what? You mean I now have the view-point?" he asked.

"Yes, you have the view-point! Give it back!" Annabeth howled, pouncing at him. Yelping, he danced back and away.

The was the cocking of a gun, and Annabeth then hurled herself at him, knocking him just out of the way of a...

... A ROCKET?!

"Yes, stupid, a rocket..." Annabeth grunted. She spun around to face their attacker, and he saw that half the back of her armor had been torn away, along with some of her skin. Blood was pouring down her back. "Come out and face me, cowwwww..."

"YIPE!"

In an instant, anna's little friend had scooped him and Al up, and sydneyeakins changed into a cat-girl, grabbing her friend and running along after them. "That was a viewer rocket! Stupid Annabeth, whining about the view-point!" the cat-girl huffed.

"What do you mean?" he asked as friend set him down.

"Viewer rockets are fired when someone whines about losing the view-point. I guess there was a faulty fuse when you whined, but this one was pretty darn good... And it looks like the poison was in this one, too..."

"Poison? Is Annabeth gonna die?" Al worried. He was a little frantic now too.

"No... She's just gonna be out of commission for the rest of this chapter and the next one unless we get a miracle. But frankly, I'm broke." anna's little friend said sheepishly.

"And I've only got ten cents..." sydneyeakins mumbled, licking her arm.

"So, if the rocket was only for Annabeth, why did we run?" he asked curiously.

"Because it's a pain to be around when those things go off... Normally when they explode, if the poison hasn't taken effect, it blows up into the whiner's worst fears."

"Things that scare her...?" he said, looking at the dozing Annabeth. "... But what're we going to do with her?"

"We'll have to take her to Home." anna's little friend mumbled.

"Home...?"

"Yeah. It's a small town... It's our home-town. Annabeth still has the majority of her family living there, as well as occasionally goes to school there... But I'm none too keen on having to tell her mom about this one... And people will ask what we're doin' when they see a conked-out Annabeth... They'll accuse her of drinking or something... Ugh... Maybe Caiman will show up and burn something down..."

"You're rooting for Annabeth's little brother?! He's a PEST!" sydneyeakins spat.

"Better than having to face that pack of giggly-girls again!"

"Look, can we just go to Annabeth's? I mean, maybe her mom will let us stay there for a while?" he said, a little nervous something else would show up trying to kill him and Al with Annabeth comatose like so.

"Yeah. Looks like... yeah, ten cents is enough for five to get Home. Two cents apiece... I need a puddle." the cat-girl muttered.

"Puddle...?" he and Al both asked.

Now he was regretting somehow getting the view-point. Annabeth always so kindly explained it when things that were new came up. Now he had to figure things out for himself.

"Yeah. Puddle. If you pay the transportation deities, they take you where you want to go. Mirrors require lots of things, because it's hard to enter them. But puddles, you just need to pay to get in." friend explained.

"Got one!" The cat-girl was crouched over a small puddle. She took out a small amount of change and dropped it in. "Ride for five, destination of Home." she said clearly.

"One-way or express?" a deep voice boomed out of nowhere.

"Err... One-way."

"Enter!"

sydneyeakins shrugged, gesturing for them to follow. Slowly, he obeyed.

There was the weird sensation of slipping down a silken chute, and suddenly he was standing outside a prim white house. Roses, oaks, and other assorted plants filled the yard.

"Hey, looks like Annabeth's back!"

"Great... Caught in the act..." friend grumbled.

Behind them was a sleazy-looking boy. He grinned a lopsided-grin at them. "So, she got drunk or something?" he leered.

He stepped between the boy and Anna and her friends. "No. She was protecting me, but exerted too much energy and was badly wounded. She needs time to recuperate." he said smoothly.

"I know that's a lie, but I'll let it fly." the boy said, pulling out a bottle and chugging the contents.

"Shoo. Before we call the squirrels... Or you know, we're about to talk to the Moose-tamer..."

The boy ran in the other direction with amazing speed.

"I wonder if the White Cat is in town... I hope not... Then the Black Cat will be revived..." friend groaned, knocking on the front door.

"Who's the White Cat?" Al asked curiously, sparked by the 'cat.'

"He's elegant, nya nya nya, with good food and a soft bed. Though he's weak to water, he showers every day."

A motherly-looking woman was smiling at them from the doorway. She carefully took the dozing Annabeth away. "Annabeth may be a lesbian, but the White Cat is one of the few she goes straight for. Another name of hers is the Black Cat. It's like the song 'It's a Wonderful Cat's Life' by 96Neko and Len Kagamine. She's the part of 96Neko and he's the part of Len."

"You... aren't killing us for letting Annabeth get whacked by the rocket...?" anna's little friend said dazedly.

"No... The little Tasmanian devil is giving me enough trouble."

"Who...?" he and Al asked.

"Annabeth's baby sister." the woman replied. "I can give you some of her brother's clothes... You'll fit them, and you'll fit in better."

"Uhh... Sure..." he replied, blushing.

"Come upstairs and take your pick!"

He did as instructed. "Wow... There aren't that many shirts here..." he muttered, digging through the drawers of the dresser in the messy room of Annabeth's little brother.

"That's 'cause he hardly wears 'em!"

He jumped a mile at the voice, whipping around to find the speaker. A little girl stood in the doorway, looking very mature. "Sorry... I'm DOA3-Year-Master." she smiled. "I'm Annabeth's big-little* sister! Thanks for bringing her home! It gets lonely at night without her to sleep in the same room as!"

That outfit... He turned his head slightly to look at a poster on the wall. "You look the same as..."

"No way! I'm nowhere near as cute as Kasumi! Nor will I ever be! Just get dressed, Edward!" the young girl laughed.

Sighing, he picked out a few articles and quickly put them on.

As he walked out the door, Annabeth's mother thrust a small basket at him. "That should see you through a few meals! Good luck!" the woman smiled.

"Yeah..." he nodded, blushing as he left.

"No way! Filler!" sydneyeakins squealed when she saw the basket.

"What's filler?" he asked.

"It keeps you full. And this woman makes the best! And she supplied enough to last us seven days! Even setting aside a reserve for when we get Al a body!" friend crowed.

"So should we..."

"NO!"

He recoiled a bit from their yelling.

"Sorry, but we should save it for when we really need it." sydneyeakins apologized.

"Quick question... How come you never told us you could become human?" he asked.

"It's only ICE." she replied, licking her arm sheepishly.

"Ice?"

"No, ICE. In Case of Emergency." friend corrected. "And since we had a one-way ticket, I suppose we can walk out of town..."

"Let's stop by the library first! There may be a book on people who've hired assassins lately!"

"Wuah!" he and Al cried as the two grabbed them and dragged them half a block away.

"All computers are taken." a woman said from behind the front desk as they entered.

"Not a computer. Looking for an assassination request log?"

At the request, the woman's eyes flicked to him and Al. "I see. Downstairs in the way back. Black book with a nasty aura."

They made their way down a small set of stairs and walked down a long aisle of books.

"Found it..." friend murmured, pulling the dark leather tome off of the shelf. They all shivered at the sudden feeling of being watched. "Last ten pages should do..." the Avian American coughed, opening the book up. "Um..."

"Holy shit..." he gasped when he saw the list.

_*Big-little- Two little sisters, the baby sister and the other one. No whining!_

**If you review on this story, I'll incorporate you into it! And you also get free cookies if you ever stop by the Layr!**


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